Well, I think that my experience is a good example. When I received the rock it was 14 degrees out. Not a nice week to receive rock. Anyways, the rock was cool to the touch when I received it. I proceeded to dunk the rock in seltzer water at 80 degrees with a
SG of 1.025.
For anyone doing this, follow these directions for creating the carbonated dip.
1.) mix the salt with very hot water first giving you a supersaturated solution. This eliminates the nucleation points on the salt, which would normally cause the water to go flat.
2.) float the seltzer water bottles in 85 degree water. By the time the bottles warm up, the equilibrium point should approach about 78 degrees.
3.) mix the seltzer water with the salt solution. Make more solution as needed to raise the
SG. Just do not add dry salt to the seltzer water.
Anyways, I did the dip and removed a bunch of hitchhikers. No mantis though. I know there are a few alive in my tank right now. I believe that they tend to dig quite deep into the rock. This dip, by no means, killed off the life on my rock. I've had a lettuce nudibranch show up, a cowrie, plenty of oysters, bristleworms, featherdusters, macro algae, several brittle stars, many crabs, ISOPODS (grrrrr...), many snails and about 5 pistol shrimp.
I still see new things all the time. So there is no way that the dip killed anything.
BTW i dipped the rock for about 5 minutes per piece.
Jim